WHY SHOULD WE PRAY?
Prayer allows you to communicate with God. The frequency of our communication with God signifies the value of the love relationship. Our goal should be to cultivate a love relationship with the Creator. This relationship moves us from living in the practical to living in the powerful. We do practical things everyday like getting up each morning and driving to work. To live in the powerful would mean getting up each morning and committing to prayer. Prayer opens the window of heaven to allow the power of God to work within your life.
The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
- James 5:16b
WHAT SHOULD YOU PRAY FOR?
We should pray in the name of Jesus. Invoking the name of Jesus means to come authorized as Christ’s representative, according to Christ’s will and accessing Christ’s merits. This approach provides the confidence to ask for good things you know a loving Father would eagerly grant His children. What are some things you would ask God for? Remember, we approach God in His glory as an inferior to a superior, a creature to a creator, as pottery to a potter allowing God to shape and guide us.
This is the confidence we have in approaching God; that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us whatever we ask we know that we have what we asked of Him. - 1 John 5:14-15
HOW SHOULD YOU PRAY?
We encourage people to utilize the simple A.C.T.S. model prayer. This prayer model effectively requires the individual to focus on God in prayer through four different ways
A.
Adoration
This simply means recognizing that God holds all power and authority and should be ascribed the highest praise.
C.
Confession
This would require the confession of our sins both seen and unseen before an Almighty God while asking for forgiveness.
T.
Thanksgiving
This requires us to be thankful for all God has done, is doing, and will do in our lives. The fact that God allowed you and I to see another day requires us to be thankful.
S.
Supplication
This simply means we submit our petitions to God. No request goes beyond the reach of God; whether big or small God can handle them all.
Finally, God does not watch the clock when we pray. Talk to God like you would talk to a best friend. God should become “a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (Proverbs 18:24).
Listen! God did not give us the gift of prayer to torture us and make us feel guilty for our shortcomings. God gave us the gift of prayer to connect our nothingness with His almighty power. The King over the universe longs to hear from little old you and me. WOW! So, when you pray, pray from your heart. God loves to hear from you as you honestly and humbly cry out to Him in adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication.
R.A. Torrey states “Prayer is the key that unlocks all the storehouses of God’s infinite grace and power. All that God is and has is at the disposal of prayer. Prayer can do anything that God can do, and as God can do anything, prayer is omnipotent”. Prayer can move the heart of God. Prayer can change the hearts of men and women.
Prayer can do what militaries cannot. Prayer can do what education cannot Prayer reveals the ultimate power source of an Almighty God. Samuel Storms said it best “Prayer in and of itself possess no power. Prayer is powerful because God is powerful, and prayer is the means through which that divine power is released and channeled into our lives”.
Contact: sandraddinkins@churchlyfe.com